Coulda Shoulda Woulda
by yesyoukillmypatience
Summary: A collection of one-shots or two-shots of all the times Castle and Beckett were interrupted or didn't say what they meant, and what would've happened if everything had gone as planned.
1. A Deadly Game

**Coulda Shoulda Woulda**

_Okay, so this is attempt number two at fanfiction writing. This is basically going to be a collection of one-shots (or maybe two-shots) of all the times that Castle and Beckett were interrupted or didn't dare to say what they were really thinking, and what would've happened if they'd manage to say what they really felt. I've already got a long, long list of these times (the writers of this show really enjoyed cockblocking these guys), but I'm not planning on writing them in order, I'll just write whichever one I feel like. When I'm finished I'll probably reorder it, but who knows when that will be. I'm starting with the most obvious (to me) story._

_Enjoy! The rating is not set in cement, so I'm just putting it as T in case. It might go in either direction._

_And if I owned Castle, this is how it would gone in the first place._

**A Deadly Game**

"Castle, do you have a second?" She can feel her heart hammering in her chest. Why does her voice sound so high? _Stay calm, _Beckett reminds herself.

"Of course, yeah," Castle responds. He gets up to follow her out of the room. Ryan and Esposito exchange knowing glances and Beckett sees Lanie smirk out of the corner of her eye.

She pulls the door shut after her, wanting the privacy of the almost empty precinct.

"What's up?"

Beckett takes a deep breath and readies herself. "Look," she starts. "I know that I'm not the easiest person to get to know," she continues, feeling her nervousness showing, "and I don't always let on what's on my mind." Castle's smile motivates Beckett, and she plunges on. "But this past year, working with you, I've had a really good time."

Castle's eyes crinkle as he smiles slightly and tells her, "Yeah, me too." He looks somewhat awed. Heck, he feels somewhat awed. He watches in amazement as Beckett grins at him - honestly, without being her usual guarded self.

"So, I'm- I'm just gonna say this and please let me just finish first, okay?" Castle hesitates, in case he's not meant to answer that either. Beckett continues. "I just want you to know that even if I don't show it all the time, you really do mean a lot to me, so I wanted to let you know that I've reconsidered and decided to take you up on your offer to go up to the Hamptons."

Castle freezes. He wasn't expecting that at all. "Really?" The word leaves his lips before he can stop them, and he curses his vocabulary for escaping him at that moment.

One corner of Beckett's lips pull up to form a half amused, half anxious smile. "Yes, really. Is that a problem?"

"Um, not a problem, per se," Castle stammers out. "It's just that Gina, you know, my ex-wife and publisher, well, I kind of invited her up to the Hamptons."

Beckett can hear her heartbeat in her ears, and can barely make out her own questions. "What? When? Why?"

"Well, she finally managed to get through to me last night on the phone, and we just ended up talking for hours, so I invited her up for the summer to help me focus on writing. I figured since you were going away with Demming this weekend, there was no chance of you coming... with... me..." Castle trails off, taking in the expression on Beckett's face.

"I broke up with Demming," she whispers. Castle isn't sure he's heard properly. Did she just say she broke up with Demming? What else could she have said? What rhymes with Demming? Stemming Lemming? Fleming? None of those make any sense though... "Castle!" Beckett's sharp voice cuts through his confusion. "Did you hear me?" Her tone returns to quiet.

"I think so," he responds. "I'm just..."

"No, it's fine." Beckett pastes a smile across her face and tries to sound convincing. "I get it. Have fun this summer."

"Kate, listen..." His use of her first name doesn't slip by her, and she bites her lip to stop it from trembling.

It's at this moment that Castle hears a voice behind him. "Richard, you ready?" He turns to see Gina beaming at him as she walks towards the two of them. It figured she would choose this moment to show up.

"Uh, yeah!" he calls to her. "Just one second," he adds, and turns back to face Beckett. "Listen to me, I just wanted say that I had no idea-"

"Castle, I think you should go. Gina is waiting for you." She wants to add, _See you in the fall, _but she can't quite manage to make her mouth say the words. Castle flashes her one last, half desperate, half apologetic look, before he turns away and walks out of the precinct. And out of Beckett's life. Forever, she fears.

Lanie is the first one by her side, hugging her, comforting her. The boys aren't far behind, knowing how much it took her to put her pride on the line like that.

Beckett lets her hair hang over eyes so her friends don't see the tears that fall.

Meanwhile, Castle is loading his stuff into the taxi, and flashes a smile at Gina, and hopes she doesn't notice that it's not a real smile. Once everything is in the car, he takes a deep breath, trying to block out the memory of Beckett's trembling lips and moist eyelashes. _There was no way of knowing, _he tries to console himself.

But it doesn't work. "Gina, listen." She looks at him from the other side of the taxi, where she had started to climb in, and smiles expectantly. "I know you were looking forward to this summer, and I was too, but I don't think I can do this."

The smile doesn't disappear from Gina's face, but it shifts from one of joy to one of resigned acceptance. "It's her, isn't it. I saw the way you two were looking at each other."

"I'm sorry," is all he can say.

And then he's running, running back up the steps of the precinct, not caring about his luggage, or Gina, or about anything but getting to Kate and telling her how much he cares about her, how much it hurt to see her and Demming together.

He hurdles into Lanie, almost causing both of them to fall to the floor. "Lanie," he exclaims breathlessly. "Where's Beckett?"

"She's getting her stuff together. But if you're back to break her heart some more, I will hurt you."

"It's not like that," Castle laughs dizzily. Lanie checks out his expression carefully.

"Oh, finally going to go for it? Good on ya, I'll finally be able to make some money from the betting pool." Castle only takes a moment to pray that Beckett never finds out about this betting pool (because it's likely to result in someone's death) before he's thanking Lanie and rushes into the break room, where Beckett is gathering up her stuff.

"Castle, what are you doing here?" She sounds tired, and Castle can see the tear stains down her cheek.

"Um, I just had to come back to do something."

"Oh, okay," she responds emotionlessly. Beckett chides herself for letting her hopes get up again. "Don't let me stop you then." And she goes back to putting her coat on.

"Kate, look at me," he orders her, and she does, taken back by the determination in his voice. "I had to come back to tell you that I made a mistake, planning to go off with Gina. So I came back to tell you that you're the only one for me, and I was an idiot, and that's about it." Now he's panting from the running and his short speech.

Beckett feels frozen in place, and time seems to stop as the two of them look into each other's eyes, neither daring to make the first move.

"Did you just say...?" Beckett trails off, her voice catching in her throat.

"Yeah, I think I did," Castle answers, and he steps forward, grabs her waist and pulls her towards him, meeting her lips with her own.

Beckett responds instantly, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning her body into his.

When they pull apart, they are both gasping slightly. Castle rests his forehead against hers, and thanks her inappropriately high heels for making them level. "That was amazing," he breathes.

From the doorway comes the sound of someone clearing their throat. Castle and Beckett look up to see Lanie, Esposito and Ryan grinning at them like the Cheshire cat. Beckett rolls her eyes and tells them, "Okay you've had your show." Castle marvels at how normal she sounds. He knows that if he tried talking right then, the results would not be good.

"Fine we'll leave. But you kids make sure you be safe, okay?" Esposito smirks.

"I didn't agree to leaving," Ryan protests.

"Can I just add, 'I told you so'," is Lanie's input before the three of them leave, shutting the door behind them to give their friends some undoubtedly necessary privacy.

_Okay, so this is longer than I intended. When it was at like 300 words I was like, this isn't going to be very long, but then I kept writing and it turned into this. Hopefully you enjoyed, but even if you didn't, let me know why by clicking on the review button!_


	2. A Deadly Affair

_Really glad people liked the first chapter! Thanks for all the reviews, favourites and alerts! This is technically in chronological order, but it's continuing on from the original plot of the show, not what I wrote last chapter. _

_By the way, I kind of unintentionally stole __**KBexFan**__'s story title, so I just wanted to let you guys know that neither of us copied (but she had the idea first - great minds think alike ;D) and you should definitely go check out her story "__**Should'a, Could'a, Would'a...but didn't**__" which has a somewhat similar premise to my story, althou_g_h it's not exactly the same, and her story is awesome!_

_If I owned Castle,_ _this is how it would gone in the first place._

**A Deadly Affair**

Castle looks around the interrogation room, and revels in how good it feels to be back. Not that he intended to come back under these circumstances. In fact, if you'd asked him yesterday what the best way to make his return to the precinct, being arrested for murder would not have been high up on his list. Actually, it wouldn't have been on his list. It would be in the rejected column along with crash landing a plane into the precinct (paying for damages would cost too much) and having a red carpet rolled out with trumpets playing a fanfare as he walked in (Beckett wouldn't approve).

His head turns towards the sound of the door slamming as Beckett enters, wearing her usual, "Don't mess with me or I'll kick your ass" face that she wears when dealing with suspects. Castle isn't used to having the face directed at him. He's more familiar with the "shut up and don't embarrass me" face. Although now that he thinks about it, the two are pretty similar.

Maybe it's time to break the ice. "Something's different. Did you remodel?"

Beckett looks mildly amused for about a second, then the looks is replaced by a mask of professionalism. "You've been informed of your rights, Mr. Castle?" Mr. Castle. That's a good one, Castle thinks to himself. He hasn't heard that since the first case they worked on together. Actually, it sounds pretty sexy coming out of Beckett's mouth.

"Really? You're not even going to ask me how my summer was?" Castle works hard at maintaining a straight face, knowing that Beckett is likely to murder him if he starts laughing.

"You are aware that you're under arrest for murder?"

"And I thought you were being rough with the cuffs just for fun." Beckett gives him the classic Beckett eye roll, and Castle can barely contain his grin. Actually, he doesn't contain his grin. It feels great to see her again. "You look good." There, he said it. Well, part of it. _Good _doesn't really begin to cover Kate Beckett. But telling people they look like a goddess in the middle of an interrogation probably isn't accepted practice.

"You look good, too," Kate replies, her mouth slipping into a small smile.

Castle is unable to stop the "Yeah?" that comes out. Is she letting her guard down?

Okay, maybe she was, but it sure didn't last long. "For murder," she says loudly.

"Why are you so mad at me?" Castle can still feel the smile on his lips.

"Maybe because you were found standing over a dead body with a gun in your hand." Oh, is that all?

"Yeah, but I told you she was dead when I got there." Being interrogated is kind of fun, Castle thinks. Or maybe that's just when Beckett's doing the interrogating.

"Why didn't you call?"

Castle pauses. Is that why she's angry? "What, about the body or over the summer?" he asks before he can restrain himself. He really needs to work on getting some kind of filter for his mouth to stop all the stupid stuff that comes out. Of course she meant the body. Beckett wouldn't let something like him not calling bother her.

"The body, Mr. Castle," Beckett responds harshly, but Castle is sure he hears hurt in her voice. Could she really be upset by him not calling? He hadn't even known she cared enough about him to care about what he did.

"Listen, I was going to call you. But I wanted to wait until the book tour was over, so I could come back straight away."

Beckett blinks at him a couple of times, looking confused. "I didn't ask you about that, Mr. Castle." More of Mr. Castle, eh? Castle reminds himself that he is taken and that chances are the boys and the captain are watching this interrogation from the observation room, so tackling Beckett to the ground with his mouth is probably not appropriate.

"Maybe not out loud. But question time, if you wanted to hear my voice so badly, you could've just called," he smirks. He also hopes that if Beckett pulls out her gun, the boys will get in here fast enough to stop her from putting a bullet in his head. Actually no, he hopes that they'll want to get in here fast enough, if Ryan's "Drop it, slimebag," is any indication of how the boys feel about him right now.

Beckett leans in and hisses, "You were the one who left, so if you wanted to come back, you should've called."

Oh, now we're getting to the good stuff, Castle thinks. "I just said I was going to call."

Beckett's eyes start to fill with something that looks suspiciously like hope, then her emotions shut down and she asks, "Then would you like to explain why we found you in our victim's apartment?"

Castle considers backing down, but decides that if he's ever going to get her to admit her emotions, he may as well do it now. "I'm sorry, okay?"

Beckett continues as though he hasn't spoken. "What was your relationship with Miss Santori?"

"I should've called. I should've let you know I was back."

"Answer my questions."

"Not until you answer mine," he shoots back.

"You didn't ask a question."

"Good, so you are capable of acknowledging what I say. Now if you could maybe respond..." He trails off, knowing that if he pushes Beckett too far, she won't hesitate to destroy him.

"I get it Castle," she sighs, sounding resigned to the fact that he's not going to let up. "You're sorry. But that doesn't change the fact that you are under arrest for murder."

She's still stuck on that? "C'mon Beckett, I already told you it wasn't me. She called me, okay? Because she knew I worked with cops and she said she needed help."

"What kind of help?"

Can they just skip to the part where they kiss and make up? Okay, maybe not kiss. Although he wouldn't say no to a kiss. "I don't know. When I got there she was dead. And then I heard noises so I picked up the gun to defend myself. And then you guys showed up. That's what happened, and that's all that happened."

Beckett eyes him warily. There's a light knock on the door, and Captain Montgomery sticks his head in. "Beckett? A word?"

Beckett follows Montgomery out into the hall. Castle stays seated, listening to their muted discussion. After a second, Beckett sticks her head back into the room and tells Castle, "The gun you were holding wasn't the one the victim was shot with. You're off the hook."

"For the murder or for not calling?" he smirks. Beckett rolls her eyes at him and leaves the interrogation room again. Castle leaps to his feet and follows her out of the room.

"So am I forgiven?" he asks, giving his best puppy dog eyes. Beckett stops and stares at him for a second, sizing him up.

"Yeah, why not," she says, her face not betraying any emotion. "Since you didn't murder anyone, I guess you deserve some kind of reward today." Castle manages to stop himself from suggesting other kinds of rewards she could give him and settles on a large grin.

Beckett lets her hair fall in her face to cover her smile.

_Yes, they don't get together in this one, but I want to be somewhat realistic, and they were both in relationships in this episode, and I don't think they would do that (although Beckett is with Josh when they kiss and during the LA episode. Obviously it's because Josh is a douche) Reviews are addictive, so keep them coming!_


	3. Vampire Weekend

_If I owned Castle,_ _this is how it would gone in the first place._

**Vampire Weekend**

Beckett spots Castle reading something with his feet propped up on the table. She does a mental eye roll, wondering, not for the first time (it's probably in the hundreds by now) why he decides to keep coming back and annoying. Does he enjoy annoying? Does he want somewhere to be a lazy ass away from his home?

She sits down on the table so that she pushes his feet off the table, causing him to fall forwards in his seat. She smirks. Okay, so he's not all bad to be around. He can be pretty cute at times.

Wait, did she just think that? Quick, distraction time. "Hot on the case, Castle?"

"On the case of a good read. It's actually not bad."

Beckett decides that yes, Castle was wasting time. So what is he doing here again? She holds up the photo of Lockerby and tells him, "Esposito found Morgan Lockerby." She feels like adding _That's what you can accomplish when you're actually focused on the case, _and maybe a, _so why don't you put that in your book? _but decides it's probably better not to.

Castle sits upright and starts flipping through the graphic novel in his hands. "You mean, Morlock." He grabs Lockerby's picture from her and holds it up alongside the book. Beckett moves in closer to get a better look. And, amazingly, Castle is actually right. The resemblance is undeniable.

"Vixen was right."

Beckett doesn't notice her proximity to Castle until she feels his breath on her cheek. "You smell like cherries," he whispers. Beckett turns her head and realises that their noses are almost touching. She can feel his warmth and her eyes, against her will, flick down to his lips and back up.

When their eyes meet she can almost feel the electricity in the air around them. She feels hypnotised, being drawn in, closer and closer.

_Don't do this, _she instructs herself, but her body doesn't seem quite willing to participate.

_No, no, no, no, _her brain yells as her lips start to pucker up. _Don't do it. _

And then their lips meet and it's almost like magic. No, scratch that, it must be magic. What other explanation is there for the fireworks Beckett swears she can hear exploding in her ears and the explosions of warmth she can feel emanating from her lips?

Her mind gives up fighting the kiss and urges her to lean into it and keep doing it, and to never stop. In the midst of the haze fogging up her brain, Beckett tries to remember if another kiss has ever made her feel this way.

Castle seems to read her mind, and protests the question by pushing his tongue against her closed lips. He expects Beckett to resist, but is pleasantly (actually, more than pleasantly) surprised when her mouth opens up immediately to let him in.

He realises that he is still seated, while Beckett stands awkwardly over him. He rotates himself in the chair so that they are facing each other. He reaches out and wraps his hands around her neck, pulling her closer.

It isn't until she's straddling him, one knee on either side of him on the chair, that it occurs to Beckett that she should maybe be stopping this right about now. Actually, right about when the kiss started, but it's too late for should haves. And yet, she still can't pull herself away. She feels like she's drowning in his warmth, and the way his hard chest feels pressed up against hers feels incredible, like they were built to fit, like puzzle pieces.

"Hey, we got a hit on the..." Ryan begins from the doorway, but trails off as he sees the scene in front of him.

Beckett finally manages to pull her face away from Castle's. She can feel that her cheeks are very, very red.

"Are we interrupting something?" Esposito asks, smirking.

Beckett is all too aware of her position, and decides that since there's no way of getting out this one, she may as well go along with it. "Yes," she and Castle chorus together.

"So if you guys wouldn't mind leaving now," Castle says.

"Yeah, and shut the door on your way out," Beckett adds.

Ryan stares at them like they've just announced that they're taking away all his honey milk. Esposito takes out his phone and snaps a photo.

"What the hell was that for?" Beckett asks.

"Evidence," Esposito responds. "For Lanie. See you guys later!" He drags Ryan out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him, and Beckett feels torn between chasing after him and destroying his phone (which method of destruction is better - throwing it in the East River or shooting it with her gun?) and picking up where she and Castle had left off.

She decides on the more enjoyable of the two options (as much as she loves getting revenge on Esposito...) and they resume the kissing.

_Um... So I don't really like this. I suck at writing physical kind of scenes and this is probably the most you will ever get out of me... But it still amused me (somewhat), so hopefully you'll enjoy it! And let me know if you do by leaving a review!_


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